thanksgiving

It's that time of year again: turkey time. All across the land decisions are being made as to how to cook the main course for the Thanksgiving feast this year. While ham or duck may occasionally grace the table, for most the question is how to prepare the turkey.

Recommended cooking times vary greatly, usually hovering around some safe bet of 15-18 minutes per pound at 325-350 degrees. Chances are that if you follow the guidelines, you'll end up with a dry bird. Dark meat and white meat need different cooking times, so when one is done (white) … Read more

Before we hit the gift-giving holidays, we have to get through Thanksgiving and all that turkey. Just how are you preparing your meal this year? Hammacher Schlemmer recommends that you use Char-Broil's The Big Easy Oil-Less Infrared Turkey Fryer.

The name is fairly descriptive--this is a turkey cooker that uses infrared technology in place of oil. So you get a healthier dinner without risking life and limb at the deep-fryer--but, it's not really a fryer, and some of the reviews at Amazon point out that if you're really looking for the taste of deep fried chicken, this … Read more

I know you're still figuring out the details of your Thanksgiving meal, but it's actually already time to start thinking about the holidays. By which I mean holiday gifts. As in, start scouring the Internet and scoping out the stores, because every person on your list needs a thoughtful, perfect, chosen-just-for-you gift.

The good folks at Hammacher Schlemmer have some ideas, and we'll look at a few of them over the next several days. First up is the Chef's Remote Thermometer Monitor, a wireless meat thermometer and timer that lets you keep tabs on the cooking … Read more

Be careful if you decide to take a peaceful after-turkey stroll through San Francisco's Dolores Park Thursday evening.

That's because you may find yourself in the line of fire.

Well, not "fire," exactly, but very possibly in the sights of those taking part in the third-annual Thanksgiving dodgeball gathering there.

This is one reason I love San Francisco: People just get together for the most silly and fun things. They do it with the barest amount of organization and everyone comes out and has a great time.

It's like that for zombie marches, for wild … Read more

With Thanksgiving only two days away, people are bringing out their favorite recipes for turkey, gravy, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. How do you keep your recipes from year to year? My father's method was to put his favorite recipes into notebooks that would be brought out every year. But even with laminated pages, eventually his notebooks got pretty messy. My mother used index cards to store recipes, but over time the ingredients would fade, especially if the recipe was popular with the family.

In the search for a better method through software, I discovered some good recipe database programs anyone can use. These handy apps let you store all your favorite Thanksgiving recipes (along with all your other recipes) in a searchable database which you can quickly print out for easy access in the kitchen. You can also catalog things like spices and ingredients on hand, and then search for results using those and other parameters. Some of these apps let you explore other databases online with countless recipe variations and varieties of foods to choose from.… Read more

Today we close out our three-part series on Thanksgiving cooking (read about gadgets for cooking the turkey here and gadgets to help with side dishes here) with--what else?--sweets. An informal poll of eaters around our office revealed that pumpkin pie is far and away the preferred closer for a Thanksgiving meal, though apple and pecan pies also have a respectable following. And while I considered dishing up tools for such alternative desserts as cr?me brulee and fondue, it seems prudent to stick with tradition; some folks I talked to view even pumpkin cheesecake with suspicion. So I focused … Read more

Today, we forge ever forward in an attempt to bring you the kitchen gadgets that will make your Thanksgiving preparations go as smoothly as possible. You can read our previous entry on cooking the turkey here. And Friday we'll satisfy your sweet tooth with a feature on gadgets used to make desserts. Today, we focus on the all-important side dishes.

Multitier oven rack A chronic problem with Thanksgiving meals is managing oven space, namely, finding space in the oven for all the side dishes and dips that need baking while your 25-pound turkey hogs all that prime real estate. … Read more

Now that Thanksgiving's just around the corner, it's a good time to take stock of the equipment in your kitchen to make sure you have everything you need to pull off the big feast. We've put together a three-part series of gadgets that can help with every stage of the meal. Today we'll focus on cooking the bird, with side dishes on Thursday, and desserts on Friday.

Dual baster/injector The bulb baster is a tried-and-true turkey tool used to keep the skin of the turkey moist and flavorful. Recently though, there's been a trend … Read more